Area of houses under EWS & other housing schemes in Haryana increased by 60 percent

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal has announced to increase the area of houses constructed for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) under various housing schemes from 30 square meters of carpet area to 50 square meters of covered area so as to give a comfortable space for the family to live.

Manohar Lal announced this while presiding over a meeting on ‘Housing for All’ scheme in Chandigarh on Thursday.

The CM said that a 30 square meter house is too small for a family and therefore, the houses meant for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category should have atleast 50 square meters covered area so as to provide them a comfortable accommodation. He also directed to prepare an action plan to analyze the market rate of property and accordingly fix prices of houses constructed for people belonging to EWS, Low Income Group (LIG) and Below Poverty Line (BPL). He said that the flats of EWS and BPL Category which are lying unoccupied should be made open for sale so that the needy could purchase them. He directed that no house constructed by any government agency should be left unoccupied.

The Chief Minister said that the state government would facilitate construction of ten lakhs new houses in the state. He directed to conduct a physical survey in the state so as to ascertain the number of families and existing houses in both urban and rural areas. Similarly, he also directed to prepare a list of those families that are either living in ‘kutcha’ or dilapidatedhouses so that they could be brought under ‘Housing for All’ scheme and provided residential accommodations at hygienic places. Besides, he also directed to prepare district-wise list of houses which are being constructed so that more houses could be constructed as per the demand through the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), Town and Country Planning Department, Haryana Police Housing Corporation and other agencies to achieve the target of providing housing for all by 2022. As per census 2011, there are over 47.06 lakh houses in the state. These include over 29.61 lakh in rural areas and over 17.45 crore in urban areas.

It was informed in the meeting that under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), all the 4041 statutory towns in the country with focus on 500 Class-I cities would be covered in three phases. The Government of India has approved the coverage of nine towns of Haryana that is Faridabad, Karnal, Hisar, Yamunanagar, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Sonepat, Sirsa and Panipat in phase-I. To get the benefit under the scheme, beneficiary family should not own a ‘pucca’ house in the name of any family member, in any part of India and annual income of EWS household should be upto Rs three lakh and between Rs 3,00,001 upto Rs 6,00,000 in case of LIG households.

It was informed in the meeting that Housing Board has so far constructed 83536 houses in the state since its inception whereas, 17024 houses are under construction. Apart from this, 22529 more houses have been planned.

In the meeting, the Chief Minister also reviewed the progress made under Indira Awas Yojana and Priyadarshini Awas Yojana. The Chief Minister was informed that the Government had revamped Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) with effect from 2016-17 to realize the vision of “Housing for All by 2022”. Under this scheme financial assistance of Rs 1.20 lakh for plains and Rs.1.30 lakh for hilly areas is provided to the beneficiary. Apart from this, benefits of Rs 12,000 from Swach Bharat Mission for construction of toilet besides unskilled wages upto 90 days under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) would also be admissible.